John Chapin and Bambi Chapin

00:01 Hi, my name is John Chapin. I am 54 years. Old today is Saturday. May 8th. 2021. I am in Baltimore, Maryland. I am speaking with Bambi Chapin. Who is my ex-wife.

00:17 And I am Bambi Chapin 10th. My age is 54. And today is Saturday, May 8th 2021 in Baltimore, Maryland, and I am speaking with John Chapin my ex-husband.

00:32 So,

00:34 John when I heard the chance to do this, I thought about immediately that this would be a possible venue for us to talk. And the reason I was thinking about it. Is that a long time ago, when we were at a Nick Knight sing in Baltimore. You said we should do one, we should do a how to how to have a good divorce talk.

00:58 And that made me feel a little like, but people do a sack. What were you? What were you thinking? We would say, what would be the how to have a good divorce?

01:10 But what's interesting about it? I mean, the contact for that is, is the you and I

01:17 Prior to that, have expressed a lot of frustration. Just when we've chatted about people, you know, all the bad divorces we've seen in friends and family and watching people who used to love each other particular, when their kids involved. And suddenly that person is a psychopath and suddenly that person is awful and watching some kids get really screwed by that and it just seemed it's always seems really awful and unnecessary because well that maybe this necessary it's always seems like that. It was really clear to us that we were going to avoid that and that we'd really worked. We really worked to avoid it because

02:15 I guess because early on, we all know we we had talked about the fact that we knew that if if any, you know, if Tucker we have a 24 year old son Tucker, if any one of the three of us was hurting, all three of us would be affected. And that was really obvious, and it was seemed, it seemed disastrous that other people couldn't seem to get that, like, you know, it's your kids, mom. It's your kid's dad.

02:52 Make the effort.

02:55 It's funny. I always feel like part of what made our divorce.

03:03 Work. I don't know exactly how to say it. Like I'm not sure if it's a good divorce with the functional divorce or something and it's a good relationship now and I feel like it's for me.

03:15 I didn't always feel like this. I didn't everyday Felix with this but like, you were my best friend to begin with like before we ever were involved before we ever got married before we ever had Tucker and I didn't want to lose. That is interesting. You frame it as this like kind of altruistic putting Tucker first, and I would like to say that that's true too. But I also was something I didn't want to lose like I didn't want to lose this friendship. That was really at the center of my life more.

03:52 More than my marriage was at the center of my life and that co-parenting with you, even when I didn't feel like

03:59 You were.

04:01 Like our friendship was a thing cope. I did want you as a co-parent. Like I want to do is Tucker's parent and I wanted you as a co-parent like it wasn't just about yes, obviously that's good for him. But also really good for me. Like, I really trust you.

04:18 So it's funny when you say that and I hear that completely that I I tell the easier story. It's not awkward to talk about Tucker in my relationship, my responsibilities to him. But when I talk about you, I think I start to feel a little weird and self-protective. Like you really haven't let go of those kinds of things come up in and I think it's been 20 years and

04:53 That's it's been twenty years. If you count when we got separated, it's been. That's where I count from not, from the actual legal divorce proceedings, but it's a lot easier to talk about that piece. It's gets. It starts to get really into it. Also starts to get oddly personal like, well, my problem though, like, it never even occurred to me. I mean, I recognize after-the-fact each time that it doesn't make people uncomfortable, but it's the, that's what, I don't know. It feels best. Feels like with real for me.

05:33 But also, what does make me uncomfortable? Telling other people how to have their lives? Cuz I don't know. Cuz I think I do feel lucky, like, I don't feel like you're a psycho and I don't feel how I feel too proud to admit that I'd married a psycho. Like that's too much ego at stake here.

05:55 That's funny because I don't have any problem telling people how to live their lives, which I probably should but I feel I you know how I always want to give that as a model not as bragging. I mean, I do feel very proud of the fact that we we managed to to to regroup the first couple years after we separated. We're not easy. There are a handful of years there where you know, I

06:28 It was it was hard. It was it would have been so much easier just to not have you part of my personal life mean like, but there we were trading off a five-year-old every other day for 13 years or whatever it was and

06:50 And still, I mean telling him to stop talking because Mommy and Daddy needed to talk to each other. Is there were there we are in the car for 45 minutes chattering and she's looking bored and annoyed but that was always the case. Like I think one of the things is interesting to pay attention to its like what kids get in trouble for and I feel like what Tucker got in trouble for. It wasn't like cursing or back, talk or like, I don't know, leaving his stuff around it was, but when he got in trouble, when we were together, when he got, in trouble for interrupting, is it interesting as a relevant? And he's such a great conversationalist, so

07:36 I feel like we're still treating him off a little like next week then to this week. I'm heading up to.

07:44 Help him move. And I was telling somebody that I was telling Jennifer that today and she said, I said, yeah, I feel I feel lucky because, you know, you couldn't do it cuz you're a soldier shoulder surgery. So I got to do it and likewise, you did the move up there because I was heading out of the country and I feel like we're still. We both want him and we both paid off but we also cover for each other like we he's like, I really trust you too.

08:21 Even though I want to do the things, I don't it's not cuz I think you won't do them. Well, I just like to do them. It's funny when you say we that that idea of we both want him that is such a a standard divorce point of tension and what we ended up doing, you know, we we easily divided up all of the Thanksgiving and Christmas is and then spent them all the three of us together by and large because we wanted to you know, it was it was clearly laid out in those divorce papers of who got who got which which year and the only real training we did is who used it as a tax deduction because the three of us,

09:10 Despite our romantic relationships with other people during a divorce and I'm remarried. You know, we have been other people involved, but we I don't think we've missed a Christmas together. Have we

09:25 I think we were going to miss that. Christmas, that you and Joel got really sick. I was going to leave Christmas Eve to go down to my parents house. And I didn't know I was going to leave right after Christmas morning or something like that, but I didn't because you guys were sick and instead took her and I went to a movie Django Unchained. What is the only thing that we could get tickets for everything? Fine, we loved it was fine.

09:56 I,

09:59 So, I have all these questions here, but I'm not even looking at and asking we're talking with these really General ways.

10:10 What when we decided to separate? What were you afraid of?

10:19 What did you want to hang on to? What were you afraid of losing?

10:23 And what did you want?

10:27 For yourself.

10:32 Well.

10:34 Was I afraid of losing? That's interesting. Or what? Did you want to hold on to like, I feel like there is a like

10:42 You wanted something. I'm not. I would be like with one of the weird thing is that we've been telling these stories separately for so long. We never talked about them together. So I actually don't know like what when you tell people

10:55 We decided to separate. Why do we do that?

11:01 I guess that's the first, that's the starting question.

11:05 Why did you go?

11:08 The easy answer that leaves out a lot of history is, you know, that I realized I'm gay that we needed to end the relationship after a couple of very difficult years of managing that including realizing that this marriage was not going to work. And then packing up and living in a mud hut in the Mountain, Village in Sri Lanka for two years, a little over playing it by the walls were mud.

11:38 Ave the back in the back, but I get to say that cuz they were mud, but you know that

11:47 That made it, that made it so clear that we this was not going to work. And we spent two years together. In Sri Lanka, really needing each other with a three-year-old. I'm and it was hard. It was very hard and we really relied on each other and we got back and has a new we had to split up and wasn't that worried that I would lose you because we had already been through the hard part. I thought we had been to the hard work. Well for me, we've been through the part where

12:28 Like I think when we first were dealing with this idea that you wanted to see men, we at that point, a lot of our friends. We should just split up.

12:40 That it was obvious, that that's what should happen and that is eventually what happened. But I feel like that space in the middle of trying everything of and then of being in a place where we needed to be together or we were each other's only fresh and handy person and translator and everything else.

13:03 I meant that I wasn't afraid. I would lose you and I wasn't afraid. I would lose Tucker when we finally did to decide to separate.

13:15 Did that ever feel like a threat that you would lose Tucker?

13:20 I didn't think I would lose him like you would get full custody and I would never get to see him again.

13:27 I felt like,

13:29 I would lose access to him. I would lose regular everyday access. I wouldn't be his mom, like his everyday mom. I didn't want to be a weekend, mom, and it wasn't. I don't know that I had, I don't think I had it spelled out in my mind as something terrorism, something specific. It was like a Feeling.

13:50 But I didn't want to I didn't want to lose his place in my life or vice versa. Well, did you feel like you would lose him?

14:02 I didn't because I knew the only way. The only way I could lose him as if you were going to fight me on that. And I there was no doubt in my mind that you believe that Tucker needed access to both of us. You know, you are always really clear that kids do better with more adults. Not fewer. And a and we'd always had a lot of adults around and we enjoyed his relationships with our adult friends, very much and saw how much good came out of that. But I feel like I wasn't ever worried because you were the only you were the only person that would be pushing that and that wasn't going to happen.

14:51 But it's funny that that access idea that really led to the every other day arrangement, we had and it was no from Age 5 to age. 19. She went back and forth. Every other day to his two bedrooms in his two different sets of Legos.

15:15 Yes, it is.

15:19 Did he have school uniforms the whole time, but I know through through, that was San Diego to Chicago to Baltimore and with with very little variation that every other day, which seemed so nightmarish to most people, we talked to work so well for us cuz we had a rhythm.

15:50 She got to see and every day. How he

15:54 Would think about that now, I think he I think it works for him and me. What does he know? That was it that was his life and we always live near each other so he could walk back and forth. It wasn't like he was without his friends or without his stuff. I mean that have ain't the only time it seemed like difficult. Was it later high school? We had to go and get his computer or from the other house.

16:20 It's funny. The the first place when you you and I lived like 15 miles apart are San Diego. And I hated that that that the the big trade-off. You remember how awkward those first trade-offs were of him. They were really. And what was noticeable was that he was uncomfortable if she would not about that. He would wig out a little bit and act differently and it was

16:51 I think the other one wasn't like I was in the parking lot, honking my horn.

16:58 But also because we would talk to each other and whether that was we were in a good place or bad place or tens place or or an excited to see each other place. It wasn't not wet that he didn't want to sit there for that. Yeah.

17:15 Do you think that's all that was? Was him being bored?

17:20 No, I think.

17:23 Like, I'm hesitant to answer the things that I think because I feel like

17:30 I don't want to interpret him to him kind of thing. Like I might be wrong, but I don't ways like I'm

17:38 I think that he had a hard time share. What do I think? I think that he had a hard time getting into our conversational space. When he was when we were together that we're living in the same house and I think that he often wanted each of us individually and that's kind of what he got in the divorce and then we would be back together and I think he was a little shut out especially because those so I don't mean shut outboard. I mean I think but he's also such an emotional sponge or he was when he was little but I think he could feel the feelings and he didn't. He just wanted just as a speakeasy and not

18:21 Yeah, that definitely makes sense.

18:29 Spike.

18:31 Yeah, I owe. I've what I've worried that maybe he would feel like he not like feel like, but like that the the, you know, you wonder like, what is the trauma of the divorce on the child? And I worry that the trauma of the divorce is that he got what he wanted, which was us individually. And I really always just wanted make sure that he knew that, that wasn't the reason, but it wasn't because he wanted. It just happened to work out that way, but he ended up, I've always told myself probably covering my own tracks, but he got to, you know, I was a full-time parent and then I wasn't, it wasn't. Like I was a half-time parent, the way I was when I would be tired and come home. If, you know, both of us to come in after work when he was really little and be tired and be distracted and one person and have them in the other person. Wouldn't, you know, we ended up with this, you have it for 24 hours and he had, he was your entire Focus.

19:31 And then the next 24 hours, you didn't and you could breathe.

19:37 Not do anything, not make a burrito or a cheese omelet for breakfast that day. I am just kind of not have to not have to be on call, which was pretty great. I always felt bad that people would say to me. Oh, you're single mother and I'm like, kind of a half-time mother like it's not harder. It's easier. I mean, emotionally, there's all sorts of things that may be harder. But like we really shared and like, I never had to get a babysitter because I just did things when he was with you, like

20:18 I mean there were the occasions where we wanted to like go out for some reason together without him and he had a babysitter that was extremely rare and he was awesome with like a parent or franchisor.

20:30 You know when people are like, oh, I never have time to exercise because of, you know, my kids. I'm like, I'm Tuesday Thursday. I don't know who did that. They had a divorce but like use that as a model who were married and feeling that kind of stress. Like you think about Tracy saying, you know, I wish in some ways. I feel envious that I can't go out with a person, I want to go out with who is my husband because we have these, we end up with the kids and like I feel like, you know, talking to Christine these days. She's like, that's one of the ways they've managed during covid, you know, is to

21:11 Switch off who's responsible because they're all in the house and you know the default is that she's going to make all the meals, do all the housework and not getting any work done. And and she said the other day she was like, you know, I've got that from you guys.

21:26 So it's funny that when we were doing it, I feel like a lot of people were like, that's so disruptive. You should switch off weeks. You should never go back and forth chaotic but dropping him off at school and then the other one picking him up and then drop him off in the next. I'm picking him up. Like, that's what happens for a lot of kids.

21:45 And even if it doesn't like this idea that like, you're supposed to have, what's normal or else you will suffer.

21:52 Yes, yes, it is.

21:58 I mean, I don't know, he might think about it differently because he is somebody who likes to have things be normal.

22:07 Yeah.

22:09 Does that does that matter? Is that a goal for hammock, as for me? I think so. I think it's so funny that you were saying that you were telling people that, you're, you're really just a halftime mom when they were saying, oh, you poor, single mom. The assumptions from me, was that I was a totally disconnected, dad, and I was always making the opposite argument that no. No. No, I am. I am one. Hundred percent both parents have the time and of course people.

22:45 Yeah, it really. I'm a single mother sometimes.

22:49 But that's just a kid. That's that's always about people expectations. I guess was anything else?

22:58 You know, I I I

23:01 I don't remember. I don't know if you remember this, but the way I remember us deciding to

23:10 You know, what to tell Tucker, you know, we decided, I will like, it was very important to me to have him not get into. Why. Or blame one of us. I felt like I didn't want him to take sides or feel like he had to or feel like he could do something.

23:30 That told important to me and so just telling him we've decided that when we go back home from Sri Lanka. We're going to live in separate houses cuz we weren't sure I wasn't ready to be sure. I think maybe I don't know where you at that time. What was going to have how this would play out?

23:48 By that point. Yeah, you know, I make decisions more slowly than you do. You say that's okay, but you're not going to get divorced. Right? Right. You don't tell me what. I think you said is, don't tell me, you're going to get divorced.

24:06 So we are going to get divorced. I don't want to hear it, something like that. And I was like, okay. Well, we won't and also I wasn't ready.

24:15 For that. Like, I wanted to try this on, you know that I, you know, I have two houses. I rented both before I bought them. Like I can't make a decision without trying something on.

24:28 Sorry to all the many shopkeepers and very stressed or across.

24:37 I remember. Yeah, it's interesting. You did know when you got that place in San Diego, that it was going to be.

24:45 Permanently living apart.

24:48 Yes, I did.

24:51 I didn't know that you didn't buy that point.

24:56 I remember a conversation we had on the phone. I remember exactly where I was sitting and you were crying and saying that it was really hard. This was all really hard. And I said, well we don't have to do it, we could get back together and you were quiet and you were like, oh, that's not

25:20 That's not a possibility now, like that's not an option. That's not happening. Something like that. And I was like, oh wait, I get it. It's like I feel like that would like an epiphany where I had thought. Well, we're just trying this out. You were just trying it out. Just trying this thing living separately. Like I felt like I'd bracket it off. A lot of my feelings about that. It wasn't very long. It was like in February and like, all of that, like pretending that this was maybe temporary came crashing.

25:55 I have either forgotten that or didn't ever know that.

25:59 I'm not sure that I said.

26:02 Yeah, I don't know.

26:06 You probably didn't say that in that way. That is one of the things that I am always curious about our, what are the

26:21 Not telling Tucker was protecting.

26:25 Me to a great extent because if we were going to, if you're going to take this up in court, it was clearly my fault and that was very generous. But what other things?

26:41 What other things do you do? You still feel like you protect me or in the last 20 years. I know there are times. You must have felt like you needed to protect me. What kinds of things? I don't feel like I need to protect you from Tucker. And I didn't feel like I was protecting you. Then I felt like, I was protecting him from losing you or taking sides.

27:12 But yeah, I'm protecting you, but that's just a matter of what happens, along the way. I don't want him to blame one of his parents and think that one parent is good, and one parent is bad cuz it's not true. It's not true. And it's none of his in a weird way. It's none of his business. Like he doesn't have any control over it and he doesn't need to let his little mind get into it. Like that's not his business. We're making these decisions.

27:41 If he wants to know why, he can ask why? But he never did.

27:47 So he filled in the blanks, though, right? You remember that?

27:56 When I was, yeah, it's funny that we never. I Feel Like We Never Close the loop on that, like with him. We never really went back. And we're like, oh, by the way, but also like, I don't know what I would say, would how I would have explained it to him. So, you know, when he's twelve and he says, and I was asking him how he felt about, you know, whether the kids at school ever said, anything or how he felt about you being with a man, if that was like a thing that came up if he's a nobody cares about that anymore, mom-to-be cares. I was like, oh, whatever. Okay good. I hope that's true.

28:32 And then he said, I was like, well, you know, that's kind of like, do you know why we

28:38 Separated.

28:40 As I realized we hadn't closed that Loop and he said he started chuckling like softly to himself. We were laying, I remember cuz we're laying in my room. We had been snowboarding that first time he went and I went for the first time and hurt my knee. So I'm laying in the bed with pillows under my knee and he's laying there next to me. Talk to me and he starts chuckling and he's quiet and then he starts really laughing and I was like, what? He's like, I just I never I never thought about it again. I never went back and thought about it and I so what did you think? Was the reason and he said, I thought you wanted to have different kitchens.

29:22 When you, when you said you wanted different houses, I thought it was cuz you wanted different kitchens cuz like you like to eat vegetables more.

29:34 And he's like any clearly, you know what 12, he was like, this is ridiculous. This is obviously not why?

29:45 Yeah.

29:47 They were very different houses that he was living in with day. And yes, it's the same. We went to, when we were at somebody else's house. I don't know if visiting somebody. Why would you put the silverware? And it doesn't belong. It belongs here. Everyone does that. And I was like, well not everyone and he's like, yeah, it's the same way at John's house. I was like, well, that's because we learned to set up a kitchen together when we were in college.

30:13 There's not the right way to start way.

30:22 Go ahead. Go ahead. What would you have told him?

30:31 Like I was glad he connected the docks at 12 and I sort of said that's kind of why. But like when people ask me, why did you get that? Why did you separate? Why did you get divorced?

30:44 I find it really hard to say because the reasons, I actually think we got divorced.

30:50 It's not because you wanted to see, man.

30:53 That was.

30:55 Felt like the thing the marriage couldn't accommodate, but that there were other things in marriage, couldn't accommodate either and kind of we both needed you, especially I think to grow up on your own to be yourself on your without.

31:13 Being and dialogue with someone else about that, not dumping in dialogue, but like

31:21 Yeah, on your own. I don't know, it's hard to. What would you say? I mean, there's the easy answer which is like, well, I'm gay and then we got divorced.

31:30 So,

31:32 I never had that conversation with Tucker, because

31:37 Before he was old enough to have that conversation. Michael French was picking him up from kindergarten first grade after school, every Monday and taking him back to his house and then I would come home after work and he was knowing it and living it like no one cares about that stuff. John.

32:03 But that seemed that seems so much preferable and I was thinking about that when

32:12 You know, that is how that seems to be a preference for Tucker for information. You know, he introduces me to his new girlfriend by calling me and I pull up FaceTime and there's Tucker and the young woman. He doesn't say. This is my girlfriend. He doesn't say anything. There's just Tucker and the young woman and hear it here is a fact there. Are you in the face? And it's much? It's I mean, I kind of like that. There's he he has the deal with the fact of it rather than hatch or butter me up, or prepare me just like

32:56 You know, he also doesn't have to name it.

33:01 Bright.

33:05 It also seems like, you know.

33:13 He likes to know things and, you know, it's just the way things are.

33:20 Did.

33:24 So, I have so many more questions and we have so little time left. Do you have questions? You want to get to?

33:33 I have.

33:35 A bunch of questions I asked.

33:40 So,

33:48 Yeah, let me see here.

33:56 This is kind of related to what you were saying about wanting to be independent. And I remember very strongly when we talked about separating is one of your first. I think it was a gut response was I wish we never got married in the first place. No, I wish I had never accepted your proposal at 23. I wish I had had my own apartment. I wish I had gotten to do those things that I wanted to do before we set up, you know, not before we set up house together cuz we were already

34:36 3 years in on that, but that you wanted.

34:42 Time of being completely alone and

34:48 I wonder if I wonder how much. How do you think about that now?

34:55 I know you don't regret.

34:57 I don't even remember saying it. It's interesting. I mean, I kind of vaguely. Remember certainly don't remember saying it seemed straighten polite. And so sorry.

35:15 I remember feeling like,

35:19 Yeah, like this didn't turn out. This was a path. It didn't go the place. I thought it was going to go. I wish I could go back and start it over.

35:28 You know, in the same way that when we actually finally got divorced after living separately for 8 years. I like wanted to go back to First principles and be like well who made exactly what and and you were like, no. No, you already have to stand.

35:55 I felt like I always did want to live alone.

35:59 It was what when you asked me to marry you, I

36:04 I was like, well, not now. We all want to live apart for your first and you were like that is not practical. We have these dishes together Furniture such as it is.

36:17 But I got that right. I wasn't why we got divorced, but it was like, for me Fringe benefit out of it is, I got, and I did get to kind of try it on. I mean, I've had a lot of it now that it's covid and Tucker has gone. And I'm here by myself all the time in my house.

36:34 No, I don't regret it. I feel like I feel lucky. You mean.

36:42 I feel lucky to have had you as a

36:47 Lifelong partner.

36:50 In lots of different meanings of that, including, and especially as a co-parent. And then and, you know, we wouldn't have Tucker.

37:00 So it's hard to meet Nick. There are other things I want. Like I think, oh, I

37:07 You know, we could have had more kids or I'd like to, like be the matriarch of, this big family, who all come here for Christmas, instead of living, this little Roadhouse like there.

37:20 But I feel really lucky for the things that we do heaven, really proud of the way. We've made it.

37:27 So Tucker is now old enough that he will be and he's moving across the country that he will likely be spending. The big two holidays not with us and that has not happened yet and

37:45 What do you think we'll do when Tucker is not with us for Christmas.

37:54 That will be a that will be a new chapter for us a prising Lee. I haven't thought about that at all.

38:01 Yes, honey. I was going to ask you what, you hope would happen going forward and

38:10 Yeah, I imagine what we'll see when we

38:15 Those are obviously.

38:18 Not one second. Not one bit.

38:21 I guess you could have come out earlier and had a very different.

38:28 Life.

38:30 But I also couldn't have, I mean, I'm 29 years old. I'm driving from Richland Richmond to Charlottesville.

38:42 And I think, oh shit, I gay.

38:47 And then I had to pause. I thought you were pregnant with Tucker. I was finishing up, grad school. We were moving across the country to California and then I thought, no, I think Janet Jackson's hot. I can't possibly be gay.

39:05 And seriously that close the book on that in my fragile, little mind for a couple more years, so

39:18 I think we can say, I could have been a different person, but I don't think I could have come out earlier.

39:26 And I do feel, I remember when you were so angry that I had gotten a kid out of you at some, at some little argument we had and I just remember being

39:39 Really, horrified by that idea that I have been playing the long game with you.

39:50 12 years together, 10 years together at that point to have a child and then say, okay cool.

40:03 I have procreated. We can end this now.

40:06 Because Christmas and Thanksgiving don't really matter. But you know, our friendship is something that I want to keep and that I I don't really worry about because it's if it's not solid through all this.

40:31 You know it. Anyway, it's solid.

40:34 30. 35, 36, 37 years. Wow.

40:43 Thank you.

40:46 You're welcome. Thank you.